Mayoral candidates Kerry Diotte, Don Iveson and Karen Leibovici.

Photograph by: Edmonton Journal
, File

EDMONTON - Despite polls showing Don Iveson with a commanding lead in the mayor’s race, Edmonton’s first election in 45 years without an incumbent is still too close to call, says former councillor Jim Taylor.

Iveson, Karen Leibovici and Kerry Diotte each have a shot Monday at succeeding Mayor Stephen Mandel, depending on how the vote splits, says Taylor, executive director of the Downtown Business Association.

“There’s a large majority … of voters who are totally attracted to both Karen and Don, for different reasons, but the same voting pool,” he says.

“Then there’s a different voting pool who have different ideas for the way the city should go who end up in Kerry’s camp … Karen and Don are so close right now that I think it’s a very close three-way race.”

The polls indicated Iveson has more than double the support of his two main rivals, but Taylor says voter opinions can change in the final days of even a quiet campaign such as this one.

He doesn’t believe the claims of 80 to 90 per cent of respondents to both surveys that they plan to cast a ballot, which would be more than double the usual turnout.

“The first thing you have to remember about polls is the B.C. election, the Alberta election, the Alison Redford leadership election,” says Taylor, who sat on council from 1995 until he retired in 2001. “Polls have not been very right.

“I know Don should be excited by this, but he shouldn’t be taking the weekend off.”

When Vince Dantzer became the last mayor to retire at the end of his term in 1968, three councillors also sought to win his job. Then, as now, the contest was considered quiet.

Ivor Dent, who won by about 7,000 votes, did call Les Bodie’s slate a “dictator system,” while Reg Easton decried campaign mudslinging.

In this election, Leibovici has hurled most of the brickbats, which she has aimed straight at Iveson.

She has put out more than half-a-dozen news releases challenging his facts or decrying his policies, criticizing him at public forums as a “storyteller.”

Leibovici has also released at least a dozen policy planks. Her plans include establishing a red-tape commission, giving citizens more budget input, creating a council finance committee and shovelling seniors’ sidewalks.

Iveson, on the other hand, rarely mentions Leibovici, although he does say he’s a better communicator.

His proposals have focused on economics and infrastructure, offering support to small businesses, revising zoning bylaws to make building infill housing easier, and boosting road and sidewalk funding.

Diotte has repeatedly criticized both his opponents in forums as dreamers who’ve presided over Edmonton’s “decade of decay.”

The only policy he has issued during the campaign — in addition to his “core platform” covering issues such as managing civic debt and ensuring taxpayers don’t bear potential cost overruns for the downtown arena — is a vow to limit property tax increases to the inflation rate.

Voters must now decide who they want in the mayor’s office for the next four years, a year longer than previous terms, Taylor says.

He sees Leibovici maintaining the path council set out under Mandel, although he expects she’d want to be thought of as having her own ideas rather than being “another Stephen.”

Iveson is likely to keep the city moving in a similar direction, although veering off more on his own course, while Diotte would step back to focus primarily on basic services such as pothole repair and snow clearing, Taylor says.

“Do Edmontonians want to see the (Mandel) vision keep being rolled out and keep things going, or are Edmontonians more concerned with cutting back on their taxes?” he asks.

“I think those are the two directions we could go in this mayoral race.”

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